These are great questions Sam. Will Xavier be stopping by any of our sessions this Meeting? He might be the guy to talk to about these issues.



Ed



Sent from my iPhone



> On 27 Feb 2016, at 01:10, Sam Lanfranco <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> 

> Rafik,

> 

> Thank you for the time you took to respond. I have read both. While this may not make it as a question for the Board, it is a nagging issue. 

> 

> https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/governance/planning-en

> https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/governance/financials-en

> 

> Here are my quick thoughts, based on my unease about apparent level of transparency. Previously, as the head of a Board with a multimillion dollar annual budget I had to dig fairly deeply into the financials for reporting purposes and before I could put my signature on them. For some reason I have a lot of trouble with the ICANN documents. In  https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/files/adopted-opplan-budget-fy15-16sep14-en.pdf 

> 

> I find:

> 

> Under: Statement of Activities: 

> •     Community Support Requests  $700.000  

> 

> Under: Strategic Capital Expenditures: 

> •    Online Community Services: $1,100,000 => Includes website improvements (GDD, ICANN.org SO/AC), collaboration tools

> •    On-going replacements & Improvements: Online Community Services  $200,000 

> 

> Under: Resource Utilization - ICANN Ops:

>    SO/AC Policy and Engagement $5,900,000

> The numbers are quite aggregated, and hence give no detail.

> 

> In particular, I would like to know how much SO/AC funding  was spent on NCSG and its constituency groups, and what it was spent on. I would like broader transparency of course, but for now this would be enough.

> How can we (NCSG/NCUC/NPOC) monitor and evaluate those expenditures to hold ourselves accountable, and to evaluate those expenditures in terms of efficiency and effectiveness, if we have no information. 

> 

> In a normal organization we, as a unit of the organization, would have those numbers and we would be expected to worry about efficiency and effectiveness. Here we (only I?) have nothing. 

> 

> Beyond that question, when things like  http://domainincite.com/19630-icann-reveals-1m-of-not-lobbying-lobbying-expenses boil up, I find it almost impossible to cross reference numbers, to confirm facts, and to defend NCSG against the argument that it helps legitimate an ICANN that is less transparent than one would expect from an accountable not-for-profit multistakeholder organization. 

> 

> Those are the thoughts that leave me uneasy about the apparent level of transparency here. If the data is under an accessible rock that I somehow just missed, I would appreciate help locating that rock(file).

> 

> Sam L.

> 

>